The Misery Machine - Tamara Samsonova: The Granny Ripper aka The Real Baba Yaga

Episode Date: July 5, 2021

This week, Yergy and Drewby head to St. Petersburg, Russia on the suggestion of our friend and patron Patricia, to explore the grizzly case of Tamara Samsonova - an unlikely murderess and possible cannibal. Email us if you'd like to request a future episode. Special priority to patrons! A very special thank you to Levi for supporting our show as our highest tier patron! Support Our Patreon For More Unreleased Content: https://www.patreon.com/themiserymachine Buy Us A Coffee! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/miserymachine Join Our Street Team! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1HfRUPQhB6LOqVupZm92OdV5rLDQcIMpHudmUZwt0C24/edit?usp=sharing Levi's Adoption Fundraising Page: https://gofund.me/d658a3a7 Join Our Facebook Group to Request a Topic: https://t.co/DeSZIIMgXs?amp=1 PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/themiserymachine Instagram: miserymachinepodcast Twitter: misery_podcast Discord: https://discord.gg/kCCzjZM #themiserymachine #podcast #truecrime Source Material: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamara_Samsonova https://murderpedia.org/female.S/s/samsonova-tamara.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Hotel_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenazepam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivier_salad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_Yaga https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M9LT8-WIvU&t=943s&ab_channel=TheCasualCriminalist https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3254501/I-ll-cut-pieces-throw-dogs-Don-t-make-angry-Former-friend-reveals-chilling-encounter-Russian-Granny-Ripper-hinted-d-killed-mother-law-12-others.html

Hiro the Miser Machine. I'm Yergy. And I'm Drewby. And this week we're doing a lesser known case out of Russia featuring a very unlikely perpetrator. And that's the Granny Ripper. This one came from our friend Patricia. So thank you, Patricia. This was a wonderful suggestion.

I had not heard of this case before we talked about it. Yes, thank you very much, Patricia. And if you're listening on YouTube, please hit like and subscribe. We have just passed 10,000 subscribers. Thank you so much to everyone that has gotten this far. Thank you so much. A week, I think it will be two years now. It's either a week or two week we'll have been doing this podcast for two years. So how quickly can you get us towards 20,000 before our anniversary date, please.

If you could help us, it means the world. And look, we're in front of a really cool bear. A little bear. It's not a Russian bear, but it's a cool bear. And then there's the mill buildings in Lewiston in the background. I swear they look more decrepit than they do in this. Without further ado. The Granny Ripper.

Tamara Mitrovanova Samsonova was born on April 25th, 1947 in the city of Uzur in Krasnoyarsk, located approximately 190 miles from Krasnoyarsk, the largest city in the district, and the third largest city in Siberia. And I hope I said that all right. Very hard for us to pronounce. So we're going to do our best this episode. So after graduating from high school, she arrived in Moscow and entered the Moscow State Linguistic University. After graduating, she moved to St. Petersburg, where she married Alexei Samsonov. In 1971, she and her husband settled in the newly built panel house number four on Demetrov Street. For some time, she worked for in-tourist travel agency and also at the Grand Hotel Europe, where she worked for 16 years before

she retired. So this hotel has now been renamed the Belmont Grand Hotel Europe. This is a five-star hotel on Art Square in St. Petersburg. It is beautiful. It was actually featured in the 1995 movie Golden Eye, although no actual filming occurred in the hotel, but it's based there. In 2000, Samsonova's husband disappeared. She appealed to the police for help, but searches yielded nothing of substance. After her husband's disappearance, Samsonova began renting out a room in her apartment. So the first border was a man named Vladimir, although there's not a ton of influence. information on him. This would have been in 2001 and they became close, but he mysteriously just up and left one day, allegedly. Yeah, I have no other information about that. The next one where

there's a bit more information is a man named Sergei Potavin. He was from the northern city of Noralsk. I hope I said that correct. They had a falling out because Samsonova wasn't easy to live with. She was strict. She was volatile and emotional. She was very sensitive. She held serious grudges too. So even the very smallest feeling that you have wronged her, she'd just go right off and left field. Yeah, she'd swear at him from the halls. She'd bang on the radiators from another floor when she was upset. So because of this, he one day up and left without a word in 2003. But mysteriously, nobody could find him or knew where he went. Not that he was from the area or had many contacts, but most assumed he returned back to his home city, which

was quite a long ways away. Yes. He was never heard from again. And this was the last known border for a long time. I mean, she did have borders on and off for the next decade or so. Usually these were men much younger than her and they were temporary, usually a few months at a time. But in having these borders, she was able to live comfortably in retirement over the next decade. And it wasn't until March 2015 where things began to change. So in March 2015, Samsonova met 79-year-old Valentina Nikolaovna Olinova, who also lived on Demetrov's streets. A mutual friend of the two asked Olinova to shelter Samsonova for a time as her apartment was being renovated. To which Olinova agreed, so basically what she did is they worked out some sort of agreement that she'd act as a caretaker to Olova, do chores, feed her for room and board.

So, Samsonova lived in Ula Nova's apartment for several months, helping with housework, like we mentioned before. She began to like living in the apartment and wanted to stay there for longer than she was supposed to, longer than this renovation, and then she refused to move out. So over time, the relationship between the two deteriorated, and Ullanova eventually asked Samsonova to leave. After a dispute regarding unwashed cups, Samsonova decided to poison Ullanova. Samsonova traveled to Pushkin, where she managed to persuade a pharmacist to sell her a prescription drug, Phanasopam. Phanazepam is a very potent and long-acting benzodiazepine. In Russia and several ex-Soviet states, Phanazepam is available only through prescription. Clinically, it is used in the treatment of neurological disorders such as epilepsy, insomnia, and during acute alcohol withdrawal.

Recently, Phanazepam has gained popularity as a recreational drug. and misuse has been reported in the UK, Finland, Sweden, as well as here in the United States. So upon returning to the city, she bought an Olivier salad, one of Ulanova's favorite dishes, and then put the pills in the salad and gave it to the unsuspecting woman. So I had to look into what an Olivier salad is. So what it is, it's a traditional salad dish in Russian cuisine. It's also popular in other post-Soviet countries. It is usually made with dice-boiled potatoes, carriages.

It's pickles, peas, eggs, celeriac, onions, different meats, either chicken or sausage, apples. So really, spices. It's basically a Russian potato salad, also dressed in mayonnaise. I think it looks gummy. It's commonly referred to as a Russian salad. And even by that name, I hadn't heard of it really before. Samsonova later found Ulanova line on the kitchen floor on the night of July 23rd and proceeded to dismember this poor old woman while she was still alive with two knives and a saw. She first sawed off her head and then sawed her body in half.

Using the knife, she then cut it into further smaller pieces. Samsonova then wrapped and dismembered Ulanova in bin bags and then a shower curtain and made several trips in and out of the apartment to dispose of her. There's CCTV footage of this. There is, which we will go ahead and insert into the YouTube video. So she left other body parts scattered around the house, but the most gruesome thing, I believe, when you're watching the CCTV video footage, is her coming down the stairs with a pot. So she boiled Ulanova's head in a pot. And then allegedly, because they weren't able to find it later, supposedly threw it in the dumpster. And this is the problem, and we should probably mention this now, is if you found some

body parts or a dismembered body in the city, that's actually not an uncommon thing to find. So apparently this had been going on for some time during this time period, just random body parts were just showing up. And I mean, it wasn't an every day or a once a week thing, but if it happened, people weren't unfamiliar with it. But as far as Ullanova's remains were concerned, they were discovered on July 26. They were found near a pond at House Number 10 on Demetrov Street, so not very far from where they were staying. And she's leaving it just in her neighborhood. Yeah, this is where we're jumping ahead a little bit, but keep this in mind how easy these remains were to find, because it's theorized that she traveled a lot further to

dispose of other people and other alleged victims. But in this case, the makeshift shower curtain package initially didn't attract any attention for several days. So even this almost went unnoticed. Finally, somebody took interest in what was in there, and I think it was a dog, getting into it. Yes. So the identity of the deceased, Ulanova, was established on July 27th after a survey of apartment residents. When they locked on Ulanova's apartment, Samsonova opened the door to the authorities. Having entered inside, police officers found traces of blood in the bathroom and a fastening from the torn off shower curtain. After this, she was immediately arrested. On July 29th, 2015, Samsonova was brought to the Frunds District Court of St. Petersburg

with the court issuing in order to detain her. Amazingly, given the gravity of the charges against her in her latest court appearance, Samsonova seemed more concerned that journalists were there to report her case and that her neighbors in St. Petersburg were going to find out exactly what she was accused of. After being remanded in custody, she told journalists, quote, I knew you would come. It's such a disgrace for me. All the city will know, end quote. And later, she blew a kiss to reporters. So when Judge Roman Chippatarov asked her to address the court, she replied, it's stuffy here. Can I go out? She then added, I was getting ready for this court action for dozens of years. It was all done deliberately. There is no way to live. With this last murder, I closed the chapter.

The judge said, quote, I am asked to arrest you. What do you think? end quote and she replied quote you decide your honor after all I am guilty and I deserve a punishment end quote when he announced she would be held in custody she smiled and clapped her hands I believe there's a picture of this

there is and she was forced now to take a forensic psychiatric exam and on November 26 2015 the results were determined that she was schizophrenic and a danger to society and herself and therefore she was placed in a specialized institution until the end of the investigation

In December 2015, Sampsonova was sent for compulsory psychiatric treatment in a specialized hospital in Kazan. I think it's how you say that. She is being investigated in connection with a total of 14 different murders. So kind of going back to what Drewby was saying earlier, you have the borders that allegedly went missing. We have her husband's who is missing. We have all these body parts that are showing up all over town. And wouldn't it be quite the awkward? opportunity for a serial killer to target borders that are traveling from faraway areas.

She was dubbed the Granny Ripper by the media or Baba Yaga. I like that the best. If you're familiar with Baba Yaga is a witch who appears as a deformed and ferocious-looking old woman. In Slavic culture, Baba Yaga lived in a hut usually described as standing on chicken legs. So she entered details of this secret life in her diaries. And not only did she keep a diary of her alleged kills, she kept it in Russian, German, and English. This woman could speak in read and write in three different languages, I assume, based on her past career. Yeah, she went to linguistics college.

Right. Yeah. And so she made sure to keep these accounts written in many different languages, which is very interesting. It's as if she wanted to just be memorialized in some sort of way. Well, they say that she had said from a very young age that she wanted. wanted to be famous. So maybe this was how she ended up doing it. It's quite possible. So I have to stress, her diaries were written and kept alongside black magic and astrological books. And she mentioned things about practicing black magic in

interviews. And one of the things that she alleged would she would carve occult symbols into the bodies as she was butchering them. Obviously, this can't be proved. And again, might be getting ahead here, but the Russian police are very, very closed off about many of the details of this case. So you're going to notice that a lot of things are incomplete. These are the only things we know. Detectives suspect that she also ate some body parts that she removed from the people she killed. It seemed as if she had a penchant for gouging out in eating lungs. Of all things.

When asked if she was a cannibal, a police source said, quote, It is not excluded, end quote. Sources in Russia's powerful investigative committee, basically equivalent to the FBI we have here in the United States, indicate specifically that she removed the lungs from the bodies of these victims. That's insane. So whether she ate them or not, we're not exactly sure. There was a lot written in her diaries, but we don't have access to those.

I mean, I've seen some pictures of the diaries. Obviously, I'm not fluent in all of these languages. But it would go from citing murders she allegedly committed to then talking about very mundane parts of her life, like going to the store to buy marshmallows or going to a doctor's appointment or being bored. Very, very, very strange. This was like a live journal of the times. Yes, yes, it was. So there was one telling line that was released to the news media regarding some of the alleged killing. So one of the passage reads, quote, I killed my tenant, Volodya. I cut him to piece. in the bathroom with a knife, put the pieces of his body in plastic bags, and threw them away

in different parts of Fruzensky District." End quote. I'm sure there's a lot in there that we don't know. Also, did you know that she was obsessed with André Chichotillo? Yes. So there was a quote from Samsonova's neighbor, Marina Krovenko, who apparently knew the Grady Ripper for 15 years, was her friend. and said that this old woman was very interested in Andre Chichikatillo.

And Andre Chichotilla, I'd like to do a episode on him sometime, but he was one of probably the worst serial killer in Soviet history. Yeah, he was out killing children. He ended up getting executed by getting just shot in the back of the head. They're very efficient over there. But yeah, she basically cataloged everything he did and studied the murders he had done. I mean, he evaded police for a very, very long time. Obviously, you could understand. why a killer of that magnitude would be well known in the media, but apparently she took a very

specific interest in him. And his methods. And the police have declined to comment if there was any link to Chichotillo himself. I mean, she would have been old enough to know him, but I think that's just a flimsy link. I think she's just a fan and not really an associate. The other thing that is discussed is how long has she really been doing this for? Did she? kill her husband? Did her husband disappear and this started off the spiral she was into? She's now diagnosed schizophrenic. Was this out in full force at that period of time? In some cases of schizophrenia, and again, I'm not a mental health professional, but I have known people with schizophrenia. And sometimes it doesn't fully manifest itself until either a certain point in your life

or a certain event, a traumatic event that triggers it. So some people wonder, well, did her husband disappear and just set her in this downward spiral? Or did she just kill him and start the process from there? Yeah, it's been theorized that maybe he just left her for another woman. That has been theorized as well. So we don't know he hasn't been found. And I guess record keeping in Russia and the ex-Soviet states around that. period of time not very good. I'm not sure how it is now. And even if he did leave her for another

woman, he may not even be alive anymore. And then the other borders, nobody knows what happens to them, the two that we mentioned, Vladimir and Sergei, the other borders she had over the 10-year period of time, we don't know anything about them. So a lot of things could have happened and the only things that are going to answer this question is the diaries. And the thing is that diary, I don't mean to cut you off or anything like that, but she could have just been being a weird old woman. Right. And just writing this stuff down, there could have been no borders that were killed. She could have just been bullying them off.

Right. She could only be responsible for the death of Ulanova. I do know that there was a business card that was found in her house that was linked back to a torso they found. Yes, that is true. So you could include that as possibly one of her borders or just a townsperson. One thing I read was that given where she lived and the fact that it wasn't uncommon to find body parts, that unlike around here, if that were to happen, where you would just be like, oh, then this must be her. I guess in that area, there are other explanations for those body parts than the Granny Ripper. So we can't just be like, oh, well, what about all these bodies that were discovered?

Well, it could be other things. Russian mob, maybe. I mean, there's things you can speculate. on, but they can't definitively say it was heard. And as Yergy said, her diaries could be crazy ramblings, things she fabricated, things she hallucinated. They just don't know. That's why the police have said that they look at these diaries as a puzzle that they're

trying to decipher. This is more of code to them in their eyes than anything else. So this is something we just may never know. I mean, it's been years at this point. I just wonder if this is going to be quietly swept away. away and forgotten about because I don't know how things really work there in Russia as far as killings like this. In America, yeah, things do get cold-cased, but there's pressure from the media to at least give statements from time to time. I don't know if that's how that works there.

So if you're familiar with how that works in Russia or if you're a local yourself, I'd love to hear more about it in the comment section. Absolutely. We do have a Russian following, so I'd love to know more. Absolutely. And with that being said, I'd still, still love to go visit St. Petersburg one day. Yes, I would too. So one really random bit of trivia before we finish this off, apparently Samsonova liked to get naked in front of the window. And apparently her neighbor's husbands used to say she had quite an attractive silhouette. You should just sit with her back to the window. I'm assuming there's a curtain up. And so her silhouette was showing. Kind of just like...

Kind of a little boudoir-esque type of situation. It seems like one of those really old movies where they have the silhouette of some woman trying to be really attractive or what have you. He's sultry. Yeah, or sultry is a good word. Anyways, very crazy case. And it should also be noted that if Sampsonova did commit cannibalism, this puts her in one of the very few female serial killers in modern history and even fewer. female cannibals. Another one we talked about recently was Catherine Knight, but it's largely disproven. She actually ate the food she made, but cannibal adjacent. Still, it's hard enough to envision a

female serial killer, female cannibal and then on top of that female cannibal and serial killer, that is at such an advanced age. She was apprehended when she was 68. She's in her 70s now. I mean, maybe the oldest female serial killer. And that's how she got away with us. Yeah. Because she's older. She's a woman. She's looked like a little babushka. Yeah, she's very unassuming. So hopefully we'll get more information and be able to put a final stamp on this case in the future. And I'd love to do André Chickatilo too. Yeah, absolutely. Not only has this been requested by a couple people, but he has been especially requested quite a few times over the lifetime of our podcast. And I think that he'd be an important person to cover, especially given people who are interested in, you know, Soviet and Russia.

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